


like surrender

by Luthor



Series: offerings to the bees [6]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Demon Sex, F/F, Fisting, Oral Sex, Size Kink, i don't go here but the power of friendship compels me, oh don't read this ha ha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 23:24:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: Night Elf Demon Hunter OC/Matron Mother Malevolence."It sounds an awful lot like surrender.It sounds too much likeplease."





	like surrender

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tieflings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieflings/gifts).



> Because true friendship is writing a 5k smut fic for your friend's oc and a hot giant demon lady.

Time stretches lazily ahead on the return passage from Argus to Azeroth.

 

The journey there had been tense with anticipation. There was no march into battle to be had on board the Fel Hammer, no exercise past the checking and re-checking of their weaponry and armour, that might wrest off the shared restlessness that had filled the ship almost to bursting in the hours before the fight. The Fel Hammer had delivered them to war without reluctance, as if the metals and magics that powered the vessel had known the urgency of the fight to come, the importance of a swift and unmitigated victory.

 

Now, like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, the Fel Hammer loses momentum the further on it travels in its drift back home.

 

_ Home _ . The word lands like a petal of falling ash on Sherivah Glaivesong’s tongue, and she wets her mouth to clear the taste. Behind the blindfold, in the fel coals that burn bright and green inside her eye sockets, a litany of memories flicker like stoked flames in a fire grate, and burn much the same.

 

Every thought of home, every treasured memory of the place where she was raised and schooled and loved, is dry kindling to the knowledge of what that same place has become – a ravaged waste of soot and death. The fel fires rage inside her thoughts, untampered by the recent victory, laying waste to the long and suffered past within her memories.

 

In the back of her mind, where her thoughts are most guarded, is a small and tender spot where she keeps the most precious memories locked. Linger too close on the wrong thought and she will lead the flames right to them—will set the entire stockpile ablaze.

 

Better not to think, sometimes, better to have that tender spot untouched by even her own thoughts, to protect it from the ruin that glows bright and demon-green inside of her.

 

Her head jerks – like a twitch, or an uncontrollable spasm – like she can knock her thoughts loose from their current destination, and Sherivah reaches a hand forward until calloused fingers meet with cold glass. Outside, the frost of space travel clings to the protective magics that keep the Fel Hammer contained.

 

The cool glass is a bucket of water thrown against the raging fires in her mind; an ineffective solution, but it works as an immediate distraction, if nothing else.

 

She is in an often-unused observation deck, not a small room but a private one. With so many of her own kind aboard, there had been little need for the visual functions of the room, but for the space that it provided. Her fingers slide against the glass and Sherivah imagines what lies beyond.

 

She can sense the room that she is in, down to the distinct shape of furniture and pipes. Her new and inherent magic caresses the room like feelers, feeding back to her the information required for navigation – height, width, distance, depth, sometimes even texture.

 

Directly in front of her, pressed with magic, the window is a black rectangle. An empty void. An anomaly.

 

Beyond it, Sherivah imagines pin-prick stars and space dust, the asteroids that the Fel Hammer’s protective barriers disrupt and, sometimes, when required, destroy before they can make impact. She imagines depth and light and mysteries that she would not make sense of, even if she could see them. She lays her palm flat to the glass, until it warms against her skin, no longer cool to the touch, and just refrains from pressing her forehead there, too.

 

It has been a long night, and her body is tired and sore and strained with the come-down of a battle won.

 

She had wondered, in that stretch of time that carried her to war, if there would be peace at the end of the fight.

 

Even if her body had been carved down, her soul split asunder and cast into the ether of the unknown, she imagines falling into the inky depths of  _ non-existence _ could be considered peaceful at the end of a life lived long and hard.

 

The greater disappointment, then, she thinks, is in having survived the battle, when victory tastes just like the ashy memories of her homeland in her mouth.

 

In these private moments, with merriment a distant hum on the ship deck above her, and nobody for company but the reflection that she cannot see in the observation room’s thick glass panel wall, Sherivah tries to remember the last time that she had tasted sweetness upon her tongue. What she wouldn’t give to push her nose into a freshly bloomed flower, or bite a fruit between her teeth until its juices ran down her chin.

 

It was her sight that she sacrificed willingly for the power to destroy the Burning Legion, to slate the craving for revenge that drove her mind and body when all else failed to, but it is so much more that has been taken from her.

 

Better that she cannot see, she sometimes thinks, for fear of what would behold her if she were to gaze upon what she has become.

 

In the quiet of the room, where only the pipes hum and the metal groans and the revelry from upstairs is a muted din through the vent grates, Sherivah can almost convince herself that she isn’t there at all. She is that black rectangle of the observation pane – that  _ void _ , an anomaly – the space where something should be, where something once was, and now is no longer.

 

The emptiness, where once there had been  _ something _ , feels all the starker when she finds it within herself.

 

Sherivah’s melancholy is interrupted by the opening of a door, and the gaited footsteps that follow.

 

While their pace is languid, the footsteps carry a sense of purpose as they come to stop behind her, and the faint tremor that had befell the ground on which they tread ceases. Sherivah had picked the vibrations up through the soles of her boots, but her magic amplifies them, and touches out behind her at the new presence.

 

Direction is of little importance when her  _ eyes _ see all.

 

Now, her curious feelers press and poke into the shape of a being much larger than herself, but it is not the woman’s size that dominates the feedback that Sherivah’s magic sends her. Her magic licks against an iron-wrought will – something hot and furling, coiling,  _ smarting _ . The information returns to Sherivah on the crack of a whip-lash, spiking her pulse the way it had when she had first tasted the army of Shivarra on the air.

 

“Slayer,” the demoness’ tongue wraps around the word until it feels wet against Sherivah’s ear, “I thought I might find you down here.”

 

Sherivah keeps her back turned.

 

She has no want for company, and less so for the kind of company that has found her. She can taste Matron Mother Malevolence on the air – the spike of demon blood that hums, too high-pitched for her to really  _ hear _ , like a siren song calling out to her baser instincts. Sherivah’s own blood reacts in kind.

 

“The celebrations are upstairs,” she says, loosening her shoulders. She lets her palm drop from the glass panel, and the warmth captured against her skin rapidly cools in the recycled air of the Fel Hammer. “I’d have thought you would be part of them. The battle was hard-won, and you fought well. You should be up there with the others.”

 

There is a sound like amusement from behind –  _ above _ – that curls down Sherivah’s spine like a caress.

 

“ _ My _ — that is high praise, indeed, coming from you.” There is too much amusement in the words for them to carry the reverence with which the Matron Mother attempts to convey. Another step brings the Shivarra into line beside her, a towering presence that radiates heat and something else— something deep and cloying. “Although, it sounds awfully like a dismissal.”

 

Sherivah releases a breath, and it is both strained agreement and weary acceptance.

 

“I am in no mood for company.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

Sherivah frowns behind the blindfold, but there is too much intrigue in the other’s voice for her to display her anger at being questioned. The Shivarra’s lingering presence is playful disobedience, at best, and outright dismissal of her authority, at worst, and it straightens Sherivah’s spine like a rod. Their tentative alliance had not come easy, nor without the great potential for betrayal; Sherivah had only anticipated it to happen  _ before _ the battle, if it were to happen at all.

 

Beside her, the uncurling of three sets of folded arms spikes her magic sensors, and Sherivah’s skin prickles with anticipation. She finds herself readying her body to react— to what, she is not yet sure.

 

“Do you deny my command, Matron?”

 

The improper use of the Shivarra’s title is a petty twist of her power, and Sherivah cannot deny the way that her mouth waters, when the air between them  _ seethes _ .

 

“Deny your command?” the Matron Mother repeats. “Why,  _ which one _ ? It is so confusing, when you send out mixed signals.”

 

The words sigh out of her, ending in a rasp that licks against Sherivah’s ear like the roughened tongue of a frostsaber, grating on her already loosely contained frustration. The Shivarra’s bait is obvious and unwelcome, and yet even as Sherivah sets her jaw against it, she knows that she will bite.

 

“Mixed signals?” she asks, and cannot deny how  _ delicious _ the air tastes when filled with Matron Mother Malevolence’s enjoyment. “Tell me what you mean.”

 

“But, of course,” the Matron Mother says, and her smile is too obvious, is too bright and wide, that even with her blindfolded eyes Sherivah can  _ sense _ the too-many teeth inside her mouth. She is given the distinct impression of having stepped foot onto a crudely devised trap, and feels quickly about herself for how to pick her way from danger. “You see, your mouth says one thing, but your  _ body _ says quite another altogether.”

 

Sherivah stops breathing.

 

She can sense the Shivarra’s own magics reaching out to her, caressing against her skin, tasting the tension in her clenched muscles, and holds perfectly still even as a shiver trickles down her spine. Matron Mother Malevolence is an imposing figure, more so when she leans closer into Sherivah, assessing her with obvious interest.

 

Sherivah feels her next words like a pressure against her throat – a knife-edge tip, she imagines, ready to pierce the skin and paint her body in her own blood. The Shivarra’s will is overbearing in the air surrounding her, almost a physical pressure that brings a cool sheen of perspiration over the contours of her war-scarred skin.

 

_ Warning _ , her magic picks up,  _ danger _ .

 

Self-preservation is an itch in both feet to run, run, run—

 

A greater calling, a deeper calling, something intrinsic and base and at the very  _ root _ of her being, halts her firmly in place.

 

Her words taste like a mistake even before she has said them, but that does not stop her from lending them voice.

 

“And what is it that my body tells you?”

 

Matron Mother Malevolence makes a noise like a  _ purr _ .

 

In the back of Sherivah’s mind, the trap that she has so ill-fatedly wandered into is set off, and licks at her body with flame.

 

“Why, it’s asking for company, of course,” the Shivarra chirps, her voice lilting and honeysuckle-sweet above the growl and timbre. “And, not just any kind of company. It is asking to be taken the way that the battle should have taken you, isn’t it? It  _ begs _ to be consumed, conquered—! The night has been long and hard, and your shoulders ache with the weight of command. Oh, my sweet Slayer,” her voice curls around Sherivah’s elongated ears, wets against the sensitive tips, “let me  _ help _ .”

 

The fingertips from two hands come to her face, tilting her up, up, heavenward, until there is a strain in her neck.

 

Sherivah can sense Matron Mother Malevolence looming overhead, bent so that she can feel the demoness’ breath against her cheeks, disrupting the white of her hair.

 

“Won’t you let me help, dear Slayer?” she pleads, and Sherivah feels her lips part. The pad of a fingertip grazes along her jawline, finding her mouth. The pressure begins light and teasing, just wetting the tip, until the Matron Mother pushes the digit past her lips. Sherivah accepts it with an escaped moan. “Won’t you let me take away that ache?”

 

Sherivah cannot help it— twists her tongue up against the digit filling her mouth, and hollows her cheeks around her, until her tongue prickles with the naturally salty taste of the Shivarra’s perspiration. It is not the sweetness that she had craved, and yet it makes her mouth water all the same, and draws a quieter, equally accidental moan from her throat.

Matron Mother Malevolence withdraws her digit slowly, tugging Sherivah’s bottom lip sensually down as they part.

 

“Well?” she coos, and Sherivah feels another set of hands upon her, fingers tucking aside her hair and tracing the curve of one horn. “Speak, Slayer, ask me to leave again and I will obey your command, although we both know that you would regret it. Or, allow me to slate the fire inside of you that the battle could not. Let  _ Mother _ make you feel better.”

 

Sherivah’s voice cracks inside her throat, like a glass held too firmly between clumsy hands.

 

“Yes,” she says, breathes, barely audible, and she knows already that it is not enough.

 

“What was that, my dear?” the Matron Mother presses. “Do speak up.”

 

The fel coals of Sherivah’s eyes blaze behind the blindfold.

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” she tries again, louder, desperate, keening, and she can taste as well as sense the Matron Mother’s smile scant inches above from her face. “ _ Please _ , gods blood,  _ yes _ .”

 

As soon as the consent leaves her lips, Sherivah feels the ground slip away beneath her.

Two sets of powerful hands grip her beneath the arms and at her waist, drawing her up into the air. Her stomach rolls with the sudden movement, and before Sherivah can make sense of just how high up from the ground she has been lifted, her body connects with the solid glass panel of the observation deck wall.

 

The impact knocks the breath right out of her.

 

“Slayer,” Matron Mother Malevolence sighs, and Sherivah feels her breath against her face, ruffling her hair. “Oh, my Slayer, I feel the torment inside your blood.” That third set of hands appear in Sherivah’s extended vision, fingers lifting to the mask around the Shivarra’s face, drawing it down until it falls loosely around her throat. Revealing her mouth and the serpent tongue inside. “Oh,  _ Slayer _ ,” she sighs, “won’t you let me have a taste?”

 

Sherivah succumbs to the mouth that finds hers – larger than she’s used to, and impossibly softer than she’d have imagined. She can do little but receive the attention that the Matron Mother bestows upon her, and it’s— freeing, in its own way, to submit to something greater than herself.

 

She feels tension seeping out of her muscles, her body sagging where it’s held aloft, even as the Shivarra loosens her hold enough to draw away. Fingers tilt and press and tease through her hair, nails against her scalp sending pleasant little shivers through her body, and Matron Mother Malevolence makes a humming noise that could as much be from pleasure as disdain.

 

“Exquisite,” she whispers against Sherivah’s face, her breath displacing several loose white hairs. “You perform so beautifully on the battlefront, my dear, but there is little satisfaction to be found for you out there, is there?”

 

Sherivah parts her lips as though to argue, and is reminded at once of the numbness that had come with the win. Ash on her tongue, a fire still raging fel-green inside her mind.

 

“No,” Matron Mother Malevolence continues, a note of quiet interest in her tone, “but there is satisfaction to be found in all twists and turns of the path that you find yourself on, if you know where to find it. I’d be more than happy to lend a hand, of course—  _ or six _ .”

 

The amusement in the Shivarra’s voice does nothing to dampen Sherivah’s blush at the implication.

 

“Oh, you  _ would _ like that, wouldn’t you?” Matron Mother Malevolence hums, too pleased, too close to Sherivah’s face that her breath is warm and sweet and everywhere, overwhelming her senses. The tip of a pointed tongue wets her lips, and Sherivah sighs despite herself, opens her mouth in askance. “Well, far be it for me to disappoint.”

 

The second kiss is  _ searing _ where the first had been exploratory.

 

A hand secures around Sherivah’s jaw, a finger and thumb pressed into both her cheeks to keep her still, to trap her in place. She can do nothing but receive, accept, surrender, as a thick tongue licks into her mouth and bullies her own. When the Matron Mother draws away, this time, Sherivah’s lips feel swollen and faintly bruised, still tingling with the ghost-sensation of a mouth upon her own.

 

She is quietly panting to catch her breath, while the Matron Mother toys with the elastic keeping half of her hair tied up atop her head. Sherivah thinks she might remove it, but instead of drawing the elastic out, Matron Mother Malevolence pinches the ponytail in one hand and  _ tugs _ .

 

A moan equally salacious as it is surprised is pulled from Sherivah’s throat, uninhibited.

 

“You’re going to do exactly what I tell you, my little Slayer,” Matron Mother Malevolence hisses into her ear, “and only when you’ve brought me ample satisfaction, will I consider rewarding you with the same. My need will triumph your own, and if you have any objections, my dear, I will see that your punishment is befitting.”

 

Sherivah’s neck strains as her hair is tugged further, splinters of pain spreading throughout her scalp, that she audibly winces between clenched teeth.

 

She feels the gentle brush of the Shivarra’s lips against one pointed ear, and then her voice, a low rasp that sinks vibrations down into her very core: “Do you understand?”

 

“I understand,” she says, and it sounds too much like, “ _ please _ .”

 

“Very well.”

 

She can hear the Matron Mother’s smile in her voice, and Sherivah wonders, for all but a second or two, just what she’s gotten herself into this time, when her body begins falling through the air. She braces for impact just before she meets the ground, her stomach rolling, but the hands that still carry her prevent the collision just in time. When they next release her, the ground is barely a foot beneath her, and while the fall disorients her enough that she stumbles forward on hands and knees, there is no bruising impact like she had expected.

 

When Sherivah rights herself, it is to the second-sight of the Matron Mother adjusting herself.

 

In her sensory vision, the Shivarra is a sight to behold as she lowers herself to her knees, and presses her back against the thick glass wall of the observation deck. She’s the only light against the stark black rectangle-void of nothingness – the only thing that draws Sherivah’s attention – that she gapes a moment, watching, as the Shivarra parts her legs.

 

“Come, Slayer,” Matron Mother Malevolence demands, “prove your worth, and I will take you to heights you’ll never  _ dream _ of reaching without me.”

 

Sherivah’s mouth runs dry at the command.

She scrambles forward until she is standing, the ground solid and yet unsteady beneath her feet. She takes a step, into the warmth between the Shivarra’s thighs, where the scent of Matron Mother Malevolence’s arousal is a thick and heady pull on every one of her senses, dizzying her mind.

 

Sherivah reaches both hands out to either side, finding the Shivarra’s thighs with the gentle scrape of her over-long black nails, as much to steady herself as to guide her to where the Matron Mother demands her presence. And, there can be no doubt of where that is, as the scent of her need grows stronger as Sherivah nears, until she is all but nestled into the apex of the Matron Mother’s thighs, and trembling.

 

She has not performed on one so large, before, and the prospect gives her pause— until a sharp nail from a curling finger scrapes against the underside of her neck, tilting her chin upward. She feels Matron Mother Malevolence like a looming figure above her, studying her face, and the tells that she cannot hide from her expression.

 

Finally, a smirk.

 

“Do not over-think it,” Matron Mother Malevolence tells her, releasing her chin.

 

While one set of her hands steadies the Shivarra against the floor, another moves aside the skirt-armour that keeps her modesty, lifting the long strip of cloth over one thigh. Baring herself completely.

 

“Begin,” she says, and Sherivah has no wish to deny her.

 

She sinks forward into warm, already wet flesh, her mouth open and wanting. The moment she draws the flat of her tongue through the Shivarra’s folds, Matron Mother Malevolence shudders greatly, and Sherivah feels her cheeks already damp with the other’s arousal.

 

She does not hesitate, after that, but teases her mouth over the Matron Mother’s inner lips with vigour. Above her, the Shivarra pants and twists and cants into her face, seeking more. Sherivah moves her mouth down to where the taste of arousal is thicker, fuller, until she finds the Shivarra’s entrance. She slips first three fingers into her and, meeting no resistance, adds another two.

 

Matron Mother Malevolence makes a surprised, if pleased noise above her, her hips jogging.

 

“ _ Yes _ ,” she hisses, and a deep laugh rumbles out of her. “Oh, Slayer, but you’ve done this before.”

 

Sherivah closes her hand into a fist and curls her wrist upwards, that her next thrust presses into a soft upper wall. It takes some practice and manoeuvring before she lands a blow that rips a choked gasp from Matron Mother Malevolence’s lips.

 

Limbs twist, hips jolt and then go still, strained.

 

Sherivah repeats the move again – again, again,  _ again _ – until Matron Mother Malevolence is making intermittent and deep keening noises in her throat.

 

While the Matron Mother is distracted, Sherivah pays more attention to the button of nerves between her thighs. The Shivarra’s clit is swollen and wet, and Sherivah draws it against her mouth, licking her tongue beneath the hood of skin that mostly conceals it. The angle is awkward, and the size uncomfortable, and after a moment’s pause, Sherivah uses her free hand to gently tease the clitoral hood back, revealing the little rounded nub that is still, from her position, of considerable size.

 

Manageable, though, Sherivah thinks, and in another breath she draws Matron Mother Malevolence’s clit around her tongue, and then fully into her mouth.

 

She feels the stretch of it, short as it is, creating a new ache in her jaw.

 

This will hurt tomorrow, she is sure, but thoughts of the future are easily discarded when the present is far more enjoyable.

 

Sherivah lashes her tongue against the Matron Mother’s clit, and, inspired, hollows her cheeks around it.

 

A garbled word, that could as much be a blessing in the Shivarra’s native tongue, as it could a curse, is spat from parted lips. Matron Mother Malevolence groans with her whole body, the noise reverberating throughout the room, and deep into Sherivah’s bones.

 

That hand returns to her ponytail, as before, holding it tight – keeping Sherivah from moving.

 

“You’re a clever little thing, aren’t you?” Matron Mother Malevolence pants, rocking her hips up, so as to better fill Sherivah’s mouth with her throbbing clit. Sherivah chokes back a groan at the stretch on her jaw. “Be a  _ dear _ and understand that the consequences will be severe if you move before I’m done with you.”

 

The threat slithers down her spine, and Sherivah has half a mind to move, so as to invoke whatever  _ punishment _ the Shivarra is promising. She is certain she would not regret it. Still, her current position gives her an advantage, in that every time she hollows her cheeks around the clit in her mouth, Matron Mother Malevolence’s breath hitches and sighs, and the Shivarra all but  _ mewls _ for her, as she coos out encouragements for Sherivah to continue.

 

With her hand buried deep inside the Shivarra and beginning to cramp, and her mouth full but to bursting with the other’s clit, bringing Matron Mother Malevolence to the edge of climax happens far quicker than she had anticipated.

 

Hips rock against her face, the pace picking up the closer to orgasm that the Matron Mother becomes. At a particularly strong thrust, Sherivah groans around her and sinks talon-like nails into soft thighs, until a noise of protest from above (sharp, almost high-pitched even in the Shivarra’s timbre), has her relenting.

 

A growl curls from Matron Mother Malevolence like a quiet promise— Sherivah will pay for that, no doubt, although the prospect only excites her.

 

The hand around her hair tightens, drawing Sherivah closer, closer, while the thighs around her tremble with the effort not to close and trap her there, break her between them. Matron Mother Malevolence is a vision in Sherivah’s mind— arched back, clenching hands grasping for purchase against walls and pipes and other parts of the ship that are strong enough to withstand her.

 

“Yes— that’s good, right there, don’t you dare  _ stop _ —  _ oh _ — _! _ ”

 

It happens so suddenly that Sherivah wouldn’t believe it, but for the clenching walls around her hand.

 

The Shivarra comes with a stunted moan that grows louder and more rewarding the longer that it lasts, until it eventually tapers off into heavy breathing.

 

Matron Mother Malevolence shudders violently as Sherivah slowly releases her clit from her mouth, and the hand around her hair relaxes, the hold becoming somewhat tender as fingers card through the loose strands. She brings a thumb to Sherivah’s cheeks, wiping the moisture from them, and hums with her own amusement at the picture that she’s made of her leader.

 

Sherivah slides her hand free of the Shivarra when she relaxes enough, and it is almost without thought that she brings her hand to her lips, cleaning off the traces of arousal. Matron Mother Malevolence sighs out a breath as she runs her tongue along the grooves of her knuckles, licking them clean, and Sherivah tilts her head up toward her.

 

She can feel the heat coming from the Shivarra in waves, too hot, near-overwhelming.

Her underclothes feel particularly uncomfortable against her skin, the armour too heavy, her heart kick-drum hard against her breast.

 

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises?” Matron Mother Malevolence asks, voice indulgent and pleased.

 

“You promised a reward for that,” Sherivah reminds her.

 

“I promised a punishment, too.”

 

Sherivah huffs against her hand, then lowers it again. She is aching limbs and a weary sigh as she leans into the Matron Mother’s thigh, supporting her weight there, and the fingers that run through her hair feel all the better with the blunt scratch of nails against the back of her neck.

 

“My poor Slayer, don’t say I’ve tired you out already?” The hand in her hair moves to capture her face beneath the chin, fingers and thumb pressing her cheeks again, that her head lolls easily in their hold. There is no fight in her, and it draws a pleased noise from Matron Mother Malevolence’s lips to see it. “Oh, but I’m not done with you just yet.”

 

“No?” Sherivah asks, her voice sounding hoarse to her own ears. She wets her mouth and swallows.

 

“No, darling,” and her looming face draws nearer, “ _ not even close _ .”

 

Sherivah is shoved backwards, the gesture more dismissive than it is intending to cause harm, and she stumbles to keep upright. Before she can question Matron Mother Malevolence’s intention, the Shivarra begins speaking, the low timbre of her voice filling the room.

 

“Look at you, our fearsome leader, trembling like it were your first time. Your body aches for this, does it not? Don’t answer, dear, I can already tell. You can’t hide how much you need this from me. Your body begs to be taken, and yet there’s something else— something holding you back from completely submitting to me. Know this, my dear Slayer, there is no room for pride in what we make between us. You will cast it aside yourself, or I will take it from you, the choice is yours.”

 

“What kind of choice is that?” Sherivah asks, the words quiet, like she’s afraid to speak them into existence.

 

“Why, it’s not really a choice at all, is it?” Matron Mother Malevolence smiles, teeth glinting all those feet above Sherivah, yet she still feels the nip of them like knives against her throat. It sends a shiver of excitement down her spine. “But, that’s just what you need, isn’t it? For the choice to be taken from you, for your  _ will _ to be taken from you. You can hand it over quite freely, or I can and will  _ break it _ .”

 

In seconds, Matron Mother Malevolence lowers herself on hands and knees, until her face is scant inches from Sherivah’s own.

 

She trembles in the soft sigh that the Shivarra releases, and enjoys too much the way it cools her overheated skin.

 

“Submit to me, my little play thing, give yourself to me. Let me make you  _ sing _ .”

Sherivah feels the spike of her own hesitation, and knows that she can act on it, if she wishes. She is quite certain her body will come out more battered than it had in battle, should she go through with what Matron Mother Malevolence is suggesting, and yet—

 

To lose herself, to  _ remove herself _ , to take away the load that weighs in the growing aches and pains of her shoulders…

 

Above her, she feels the Matron Mother watching her, waiting for her to decide. Sherivah moves shaking hands to the clasps of her armour, and pleased laughter fills the air above her when Matron Mother Malevolence sees. It feels like a weight disappearing from her back.  

 

Her arm bracers clatter when they hit the ground, sending vibrations of noise throughout the open observation hall, too loud in the silence.

 

It sounds an awful lot like surrender.

 

It sounds too much like  _ please _ .


End file.
